Academic institutions generally, and teachers in particular, have a daunting task in providing meaningful and comprehensive test-taking opportunities, which are fair to all students in a class, yet take into consideration the need for flexibility as a result of a wide range of reasonable exceptions. Such exceptions may include learning disabilities, absence due to illness, scheduling conflicts as a result of extracurricular activities, and other teacher obligations in and outside the classroom.
In addition, academic institutions with multiple instructors teaching the same courses benefit from standardization and simplification in the test-taking process to establish a consistent benchmark for the quality of education afforded each student regardless of the instructor. Similarly, instructors benefit from insights and input from other instructors in compiling probative questions and sharing varied techniques for expanding the knowledge of their students.
While solutions exist, classroom size alone can preclude the time for collaboration between students and instructors that typically required to address these concerns.
Another problem that exists is providing timely feedback to students. In some cases, students may learn the results of a test weeks after the test is taken, which may be too late to improve. Worse yet, the passage of time may have compounded a misunderstanding which might have been alleviated if feedback was available at an earlier stage.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists for improved systems and methods for providing test or homework questions that are capable of being graded automatically or with limited teacher input, and which analyze the answer so students learn from their mistakes as soon as the test is completed. There is also a need for improved systems and methods for providing oral responses, particularly in the case of language courses, where pronunciation and fluidity of expression are important. There is a further need to provide students with the flexibility of taking tests outside the regular classroom. Further still, there is a need to assist teachers in readily providing multiple different tests for common subject matter given at different times to students in the same class, for example, so that similarly situated students and their teachers have greater flexibility in the test-taking process without affecting the fairness of the test.